Liar, Liar, Liar.....

Through my explorations of things that create marks in the mind -  those thoughts that disturb my energy levels and lower their frequency, I realised it was not just places where I judged myself that this arose, but when I judged other people I also felt a similar discomfort in my being. In ripping them apart for something, in effect, also seemed to rip apart the equanimity of my own mind.

I started looking at those words and ideas that caused these reactions - of lowering energy levels. As part of the exercise I put out a question on Facebook with a list of words that I had thought of and asked people on my friend list to add to them. Using some the words and ideas that they shared with me, I started writing these words, seeing what would happen to the word-mark if I kept repeating the written word.

I was trying to recreate the stains created while drinking tea, where it had been my carelessness in pouring tea into the cup.  Sometimes it was because of the greedy gulps I could not quite manage to mouth, while drinking from the cup that also created the stains on my saucer. In an earlier exercise I had left a four-piece- layered muslin on the saucer to absorb the stains. At first I thought I would use this fabric itself, but the marks faded with washing and therefore I had to find another way to create these marks.

So, going round and around the contours of the identified words in Hindi or English I found similar blobs could be created. I also combined a few words like fat slob or stupid bitch and even tried repeating them. If you didn’t know which words had been used – they actually looked a lot like the tea stains I had observed in my saucer. 

My hand writing is small and I wanted to enlarge the word-drawings. So, I went down to the newly opened photo-copy shop housed in our building complex.  Nitin runs the shop and he was curious about what I was doing, so I shared the idea. The next day, when I went back with some more drawings and asked him to enlarge them still further, he asked me if my rendition of ‘Liar’ intentionally had two faces.

I had pencilled in the word next to the drawing so that I knew which word I was working with and he had read that. It was an interesting interpretation which intrigued me because I had not quite come to that point of identifying the association a viewer might give these word-stains.  Therefore, I decided to begin the embroidery work with this word-stain/blob.

I don’t know if the ‘liar’ I had drawn could really be interpreted as having two faces, but it does sort of look like what could be double-speak, which is in effect what liars do. I also think that when we do something that is not really in concurrence with the truth, whether we realise it or not, some mechanism inside us does nag. When people shut themselves off from this voice and if confronted, they tend to appear arrogant. I also discovered that in judging someone, something similar goes on inside of my mind too.

One evening at the start of the swimming season I had finished my swim and was sitting by the pool drinking some [mineral] water.  As I savoured the spirit of hope in an early April evening with the fresh green of new leaves reflected in the pool blue, one of my neighbours came down with her daughter. I sat there sipping from a plastic glass wondering why this woman had not responded to my message inviting her and her child to come see the performance  my art class was putting up in the coming week. She had to pass me to get to the pool but had walked by without acknowledging me. She later did look in my direction a couple of times, but in refusing to make eye contact it seemed that she didn’t see me. I was directly in the line of her gaze so that too was strange. I couldn’t give her the benefit of doubt that I was invisible because with my height and frame I am impossible to miss, especially since there was no-one else at the pool at that time. 

I could have walked away, but I thought I had invited her, so maybe I should remind her of my invitation and reiterate it. I walked up to her and said hello and was asking if she had received my message but before I could finish my sentence she said rather abruptly, dismissively and a tad too rapidly, “sorry, I have been too busy to respond to your message”. She used the word sorry without a hint of anything remotely resembling the humility of an apology, it smacked of arrogance instead – implying that she was too busy to respond to invitations from a neighbour or anyone whom she, at that point in her life, deemed irrelevant to her. And clearly I was in that category – a nuisance rather than an asset.

This idea has always bothered me. I often wonder why is it that I never seem to have the capacity to deem anyone irrelevant enough to ignore them or their invitations, especially when they are known to me and there has been no contention between us, or the capacity for it. Is it because I am not busy enough? Sometimes I do forget things, but during meditation or Reiki things just pop up and this luxury, if one can ever think of it as such, does not exist for me. Once prompted, I do the needful.

Her dismissal of me and my invitation didn’t end there, and I wished that I had not taken that step to talk to her because her attitude was offensive and it left me disturbed. However, I wondered, did it bother her at all?

Did her double-speak which came forward as arrogance rather than a genuine apology, create the kind of blob in her being that my drawings had? When she was speaking to me in that defensive way, clearly implying that she was not really telling me the full truth and that behind that facade of being too busy to respond, something else that had been creating the need to make it seem as though I was irrelevant- did that ring out ‘Liar,Liar, Liar!’ in her mind? I wondered.....

Dealing with what I felt, at the receiving end of this attitude, which at some level, dealt with not telling the full truth. This person was not being able to say whatever else had been festering and that resulted in this strange and unexpected attitude - and in that sense dealing with an untruth, I felt disturbed. I knew that it had less to do with me and more to do with the person and her own mind, but I realised that the energy levels do get passed on and when we know that someone is lying or not telling the full truth the fabric of our own mind begins to get fraught – at least mine does!

I can’t just shrug it off. Eventually I do, but I first need to allow the feeling to speak to me. In observing what went going on, I realised that it tears at the fabric of mind. It shreds it and pulls it in different directions because I’m trying to figure out, where did this come from and why? Have I unwittingly done something to upset this person and what could that be? Since we are not exactly friends and nor do we have much to do with each other and  are barely passing acquaintances who have lived in the same complex for about 4-5 years. We meet at the park or the pool and other common areas and events – and that too occasionally, so what could it be?

 I could feel the fabric being pulled here and there – the sentiment and grace of reiterating the invitation, was being shred in my own mind. Why did I have to do that? Should I have walked away and let it ride? In effect, I could tell that she was avoiding me and perhaps it had to do with the fact that a workshop was in the offing and there was a charge and it embarrassed her – to say that she did not want her child to participate or something on those lines? But whatever it was, it was better to know, rather than let it ride and create a sense of awkwardness in my mind. I prefer not to do that – at least not now at any rate, though I have to confess, I have been guilty of avoiding asking such questions earlier on in my life.

And through this drawing of the threads of thought - on one side and then another and sometimes ripping the whole fabric of mind apart, I could hear ‘Liar’ ring out. It was my judgement of her. I had decided that she was not telling me the whole truth and that was why there was defensiveness in her attitude that echoed arrogance rather than a graceful regret at not being able to attend.

This incident and my feelings about it reminded me of the embroideries that I had been working on where’ Liar’ was the ‘word-stain’ I had been dealing with. I had used the ‘word-stain’ or blob that the word created – inserting this between layers of muslin. After seeing what the marks did when over-laid with fabric that had been pulled apart, I wrote ‘Liar’ in long hand with needle and thread. I was working more from a sense of feeling rather than any conscious realization of things. But, when I picked up the embroidered pieces later that evening, I saw that intuitively I had actually created a texture, evoking the same kind of feelings I had experienced, in relation to this incident by the pool.


And imagined it must be what gets created in all minds - knowingly or unknowingly.  When the judgement is repeated, thinking it would form a rigid pattern – a kind of defence mechanism that actually adopts the idea inadvertently through the process of denial, I have worked it in cross-stitch. I used the letters ‘LIARLIARLIAR’ to create a pattern of sorts.

When you are faced with something similar.... innocuous perhaps..... but then perhaps not - would you say that the marks left in your mind are akin to these thread renditions?

Painting With Fire

Earlier when I worked with stains, I was observing stains made by tea leaf residue in my cup. I took lots of photos and then got some digitally printed onto fabric. I would then trace these marks with a kantha or running stitch and sometimes finish the edges with a border, using cross stitch. There was something very peaceful about looking at stains this way. I had not created them. They did not speak of the stains in my own mind but, were leading me to look at those marks through which I judged myself, the way many of us do. This process allowed me to examine the marks in an objective way, lending confidence to look at the real stuff that filled my mind.  

 

The advertisement for a popular detergent which says “daag acche hai” [i] caught my attention with the idea that in doing something good for others, if the garb gets soiled, the stains could not seen merely as dirt to be washed off. We do unwittingly bring home dirt in an attempt at playing the Good Samaritan, but if we stand back we can see  the ‘good’ in the experience. For me this objectivity is gained by going over and over the same thoughts and sometimes, I need to express fully what I feel, before I can stand back and see things without the rancour of an emotional state.

 

Going over the photographed marks again and again, finding the courage to look into the dark lanes, I moved away from the printed images to create my own stains, which I have been working on for a few months now. It’s not a comforting process. Sometimes I think, or rather I hope that I have reached a point where I can just sit and amble along the marks with the running stitch I so love, but then I look at the piece and it does not have that raw emotion I want to present.

When something gnaws at you, it has the power to consume you and that was what I wanted to speak of. So I brought ‘burning’ back into the process and started painting with fire.
 

I used the fabrics that I had stained with tea and other stuff in the kitchen. I created a collage of sorts, using some shibori that I had done too, along with some white net. This looked really fabulous and gave a kind of ethereal effect. I like to think of it as grace that descends when the fire of any emotion, not just anger but even love - when the passion has burnt itself out.

For a while I was quite happy with the burning process. I loved watching the embers dance along the edge of the fabric and then die out as the fabric shrivelled into a grey ash. But it was also quite a draining process. My eyes would smart and I would feel really tired in a very short while and could not quite understand why. Saba Hasan, a painter, who also has played with fire, says she thinks it is the process, but I think it has a lot to do with the toxic fumes that I breathed in which the lungs do not appreciate. At least not after I have spent the morning doing pranayama!

 

 

 

 

I burned what I wanted to and then took the fabric back to the stitching course. But, then again after a few days of forming those concentric circles with kantha, where I pucker the fabric and create a raised effect- something I usually delight in doing, I found there was no charm in doing this kantha work anymore. It was stifling the piece, so one Sunday I just took the fabrics I had painstakingly stitched together and embellished with kantha and cut it in up in places, ripped it apart in others, tearing at the threads with pointed instruments I keep just for this purpose, and then proceeded to torch it with the naked flame of a candle till it burnt though the multiple and complex layers.

It was an aggressive process and quite cathartic too. But it didn’t end there. I did feel able to return to sewing for a while and had a couple of days that were quite ethereal and graceful with the needle slipping in and out of the layers of stains, now charred in places and ripped in others; taking her thread, sewing, repairing and decorating with textures and colour- adding life to the fragile fragments. And then again discontent was stirred: I felt that none of this was really evocative enough. I thought I would bring some cross stitch into the piece. Something just seemed to be missing. I wanted to do something different,  but was not certain what this could or should be.

I cut up some matte to place behind the piece with its gaping burnt holes and was thinking how I would approach the uniform cross-stitch with this ungainly, raw, burnt texture and form, when I decided that I did not feel patient enough to do all that needle work. I just wanted some colour in there so what was wrong with some red fabric? I wanted a flamboyant red, to complement the burned, brown edges, which now seemed so forlorn and uninteresting, with its bloody hue.

 

 I only had some organza in my cupboard and that did not look quite right, so the next day I went to the local market and got some poplin and voile that had been commercially dyed. Now, about a week or so of having stitched the fabric and burned the edges of the red fabrics and put it all together, I have to admit that I want to go back a few stages and leave the fabric without this backing and let the gaping holes speak for themselves. This means that I have to undo all that stitching I have done. Do I need the bloody-red or is it overbearing?   I rather think it is, but these days the muse is fickle.....

 

 

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[i] Stains are good

[ii] Tie-dye

Another Canvas, Another Approach......

I have moved on. I found it really irksome trying to cover the copper wire with thread. I was uncertain about using it in the first place and decided that I needed to give it a break.

 

Elaine made a very valid suggestion that a couching stitch[i] would be a good way to replace the wire and Livinder Singh, a friend of a friend [on Facebook] commented on Facebook that this particular type of copper wire that I was using was an enamelled wire which could break with the bends, which if it did, would oxidise and could destroy the fabric. I have used this wire before and knitted it which involved a considerable amount of such bends and perhaps more intense ones, and so far, in the last 6 years, I have not seen any signs of oxidising but I have been given considerable food for thought.

 

Couching requires a lot of control. The stitch itself is easy enough it is trying to keep the laid thread in place which wires me up. Using the copper wire did allow me scope to wander off on a tangent. It was difficult getting it to work with the softness of the material but......

Anyway, while I was debating this, trying to be disciplined about it, I expanded the repertoire of stains.
 

  It just sort of dawned upon me that stains are not confined to tea. I did however stay with the idea of stains, as in the accidental colour imparted to fabric through careless eating and stuff like that but, expanded this to include dyeing and doing some Shibori ( tie-dye) too.

 

I started with Jamun [purple fruit is the literal and only translation I have found. If anyone knows what the biological name is or any other please do tell] but even though I had loads of fun collecting the fallen fruit off the grass or pavement around the compound where I live, I couldn't get the fruit to dye any fabric that gorgeous purple-blue that it stains my tongue after eating the fruit. Maybe I needed a mordant? But I'm new to the whole natural dyeing process so maybe by next year I'll have figured it out. Yes, alas I shall have to wait a whole year for this seasonal fruit to appear again. Hopefully I will be prepared with my recipe for dyeing by next May/June to find a way to dye it, if indeed one exists and also if I am still working with the idea of stains in the same way.

Mahipal, who works in my household and assists me with various things including the dyeing of fabric, while washing the fruit with potassium permanganate [I use it for all soft fruits as a kind of disinfectant] he came up with the idea we may get a nice pink colour if we used this. He had been involved in the whole process of collecting the fruit [Jamuns] and the intense fermenting that I tried to do to get some results and was equally frustrated as I. I loved the idea and jumped at it, but the colour only stays pink in water.

I did get some unexpected colours though. They ranged from a deep umber to black on organza which I liked, and on muslin it created this dull green gold which was fascinating.

I loved the palette that was emerging. All different shades of black, greys and browns made me think of Rothko and his deeply contemplative sectionals. After all that rambling in the wire and thread piece now laid to rest, I did need to dwell upon the darkness it was bringing up in my mind.

Resisting effort doesn't augur well for continuation of anything so I wanted to explore these darker hues and felt the need for an organised form. Playing around with the various fabrics and the colours imbued I found myself veering towards this rectangular shape that you now see. 

It was exciting while I cut up the variously dyed bits and did this fabric collage, but once I had gotten over the initial excitement, it started looking too busy and tacky. However, I persisted, telling myself that once I had sewn them together - tacked them with thread rather than oil pins which held them together initially, that the appearance would be calmer.
 

And things did calm down. And while sewing, I felt calmer too. Each stitch, especially those multiple stitches that I needed to keep that finely shredded muslin’s threads in place, required patience. Holding each errant thread trying to escape the woven structure, aided in no part by my encouragement in taking them out one thread at a time in the first place, I too started to breathe easier and the more I worked upon this, the more I relaxed. And the more I calmed down, the more I wanted to quieten down the contrast - especially in the central squarish space.

And that is what I am working on right now. But, I am excited to share this new development.
 

PS: If anyone can give me tips on mordant for dyeing and that ilk, I'd really appreciate it.

 

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[i]Couching is a technique in which yarn or other materials are laid across the surface of the ground fabric and fastened in place with small stitches of the same or a different yarn. In its most basic form couching is among the easier embroidery stitches. Essentially, the couching stitch is just a little straight stitch taken over some other thread (or ribbon or wire) to hold it down.

An Awkward Marriage.....

 

 I started using copper wire in my textile pieces around 2004. It was then an adjunct to frame the fabrics, lending strength to cloth I had taken apart thread by thread and rendered virtually thread

-bare.

I moved away from this practice. I found it laborious even then to work with the wire. But, after a gap of many years, around March this year, I decided to pick it up again - using the same copper wire to embroider with. It was awkward to say the least. Earlier, it was intended as a support for the fragile nature of fabric I had created, this time I tried to integrate it into the fabric structure itself.
 

Although it is relatively malleable as far as most wire is concerned, this copper wire is still tough to work with - to get it to do what I want. It goes all over the place, reminding me of how difficult it can be dealing with people who are WIRED differently.
 

When I stopped trying to control the gleaming russet wire, its wilful meanderings brought elements into play that thread could never do and started me thinking.....

I have persisted with many ghastly results but slowly we are finding a way to make things work. Or so I think...  ..!

Compared to needle and thread which is delicate and so amenable, the copper wire makes these grand but clumsy sweeps. I don't use a needle. It works as needle and thread in one, but its point is not as sharp as a needle, so it isn't easy to penetrate the layers of fabric that I like to work with.

I won’t blame anyone for thinking its sacrilege to add this rather crass, awkwardly meandering thread alongside the delicate Kantha and chain stitch. I am in two minds about it myself.

 

 It takes a lot of work to marry their disparate elements but there's also something about the wire, which sort of eggs me on to keep working with it, despite the awkwardness.

I let the wire thread its gauche way through the fabric and then I spend hours covering its naked audacity with floss, using a half hitch knot[i], which is similar to a buttonhole stitch, except that the latter catches a loop of the thread on the surface of the fabric, while the half-hitch knot is traditionally used without a needle to secure some object with rope to a hitching post. Anyway the process of covering this wire with three strands of untwisted embroidery floss takes forever and the thread gets so twisted that I cannot continue. So I have to turn the piece upside down, let it hang a bit, to let the twisted thread unwind, then get it back up again and start the process all over again.

I liken this, to what I feel myself, when life is challenging and it seems that I have to stand upside down, to be able sort it all out.

 

When I stand upside-down the whole world is perfect.

It’s when I have my feet on the ground

that everything looks upside down.

 

I have to admit that working with the wire has been getting to me of late - not quite enjoying it as much as when I started out.
 

The gawky gestures of the copper wire are alien to the delicacy of stitch, yet also evocative of some part of me that is restless, impatient and insecure, wanting to live larger than life, even if it’s just occasionally so, before I am brought down to earth with a thud.

And it happened one Sunday evening six weeks ago, on 30^th June to be precise, when I collapsed after a swim, shivering with a sudden rise in temperature to 103 degrees. I panicked, more at the fact that in the middle of a summer evening’s temperature of 38 degrees Celsius, I lay under a light Jaipuri quilt, without a fan on, my teeth chattering, while everyone around me, in the same room, had sweat pouring down their cheeks. To add to my consternation, even my yoga teacher had left a message, earlier in the day, to say that I should take it easy with the regimen.

Things had been hectic and I was exhausted, but I thought: it can't me more than that. Anyway, I went through the blood tests nonetheless thinking, that at worst, I must have picked up some viral bug. Eventually I was diagnosed with typhoid which is why the pages of this e-journal haven’t been written in for a while.

 

But, all the health shenanigans aside, the pressing question is:  should I persist with this marriage of wire and thread, or is thread alone enough?

 

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[i] The half-hitch is an ancient knot which is a simple overhand knot where the working end of a line is brought over and under the standing part.  It cannot stand on its own and is usually tied around a pole or some structure, even rope. It has however been incorporated into beading and other embroidery methods.